


Passing out pieces of me

by bchekov



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study-ish, M/M, Prosopagnosia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-21
Updated: 2018-02-21
Packaged: 2019-03-21 23:13:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13751217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bchekov/pseuds/bchekov
Summary: Too stupid to remember his own face even, sometimes. He could stare at it for how long he wanted, and there would always be that underlying tone of unfamiliarity.[in which Dirk struggles with face blindness]





	Passing out pieces of me

**Author's Note:**

> it's 2 am please forgive any mistakes

Unfamiliar faces surround him, day after day, continuously throughout his childhood and early teens. They don’t have names, despite hearing the same foreign sounds transform into something cold lingering in his stomach- much ike this own- during the course of his stay, he never manages to attach them to each other; he never manages to attach his own name to his face either. He doesn’t think about it then. He doesn’t think about it years after he has left.

Only when he ran into an acquaintance from Blackwing does he start thinking about it.

He had just turned twenty seven; nine years had passed since he last saw her. She had recognized him right away and greeted him with a hug while he just stood there, stiff and unmoving. He’d had _no clue_ who she until she started talking. He only knew of one person who spoke with her entire body like that. _Project Herodias!_ He'd exclaimed happily and pulled her into another hug. She had been clearly been confused, but returned it with a smile.

He did feel guilty about not knowing her right away like she had him, but tried brushed it off. _It had been years,_ he told himself, _she had changed and so had he,_ but the cold feeling in his stomach didn’t entirely go away.

He tried to keep it of his mind, but similar situations kept happening. People approached him and started talking to him like they knew him, and it always took a minute or more for him to realize who he was talking to. It always left him with that cold feeling, but it was nowhere as bad as the times he didn’t have time to figure out who they were before they left. He wanted to blame Project Herodias. For _what_ exactly he didn’t know. It was just her fault, he tried to convince himself, that he was thinking about it; that people kept approaching him, that he was too _stupid_ to remember their faces.

Too stupid to remember his own even, sometimes. He could stare at his face for how long he wanted, and there would always be that underlying tone of unfamiliarity. He knew his face better than he knew anyone else’s, which didn’t say much really, but it also felt like a stranger was staring back at him. He didn’t feel connected with it.

“Svlad.” he had once said while staring at his reflection to see if it would change anything, and it did. The cold spread to his chest and he found that he couldn’t look at himself for days afterwards.

So naturally, like he does with most, if not every, problem he runs away from it instead of facing it and thus, he begins traveling the country.

Staying at one place for too long meant people recognizing him, which was something he did not want, so when people started showing signs of familiarity towards him he was out. He started following what he’d come to call _hunches_ around, something he, since leaving Blackwing, had attempted to avoid, (it didn’t always work out as whatever they were pulling him towards usually ended up coming to him instead).

In a way, it felt relieving. He was helping people, and for a while it made him happy.

Then, on a sunday night, a few days before he were to turn thirty, he came to the harsh realization of how utterly _lonely_ he was.

So naturally, he did the opposite of what he had been doing for his entire life, since that seemed to get him nowhere, and decided to start trying.

He took a step back, figuratively, and looked over himself. He began working on finding traits in people that were unique to them, like how Project Herodias used her entire body when she talked, and linked the person to that particular trait. Admittedly, it only works when he remembered to pay attention to such things, which was a struggle when your mind is constantly going a hundred miles per hour, but he managed. Eventually it had become a habit to look out for identifiable qualities, and he had to admit he was rather proud of himself. 

The name, _his_ name he often had to remind himself because of how detached it felt from himself, still made him cringe whenever spoken out loud, so he started calling himself _Dirk_. He happened to stumble upon it when he was out walking. Someone had said it right as he walked past, and it stuck in his mind.

Standing in front of the mirror in his shabby motel room, he repeated it over and over, and he found that he liked it. It fit with his loud clothes, he thought, as well as his restless fingers, always drumming or tapping, and how the slight unfamiliarity the name matched his face.

 _Gently_ , he came up with himself, simply because there was nothing gentle about him and the bitter irony would keep him grounded so he wouldn’t get too caught up in his new lifestyle.

It was particularly useful when he stood face to face with himself. He knew his face well enough to startle when he found it staring back at himself he immediately recognized himself. _Dirk Gently,_ he thought, _is standing right in front of me and I am right here and there is a man with very blue eyes standing behind him- me!?- and another one wearing a steampunk suit and oh my god i am going to faint-_

What really stuck with him from that encounter, besides his, _the other Dirk’s_ , words, was the man standing behind him(self?) looking just as confused as he was feeling. He wasn’t sure why, but it was something strangely familiar about him.

Climbing in through his window at the Ridgely and being greeted by yelling and fighting- not quite what he was expecting, but it could’ve gone so much worse- was an experience in more than one ways; mostly because he found that the cold feeling that resided in his stomach dissipated for a moment, looking at him in the face. For once, he didn’t feel like something was wrong, or missing, but he didn’t get much further than that before he was thrown out.

The second time they met it went similarly; something was different and he felt a type of unfamiliar familiarity he definitely felt before, but he couldn’t place _where_.

It takes him a day before he realizes it was the same feeling he felt when he looked at his own face, like he recognized it but only partly. The details escapes him, always have and probably always will, but he has a basic knowledge of his face based on that same unfamiliar familiarity. Watching Todd playing guitar with his sister triggers a memory of being at a tiny festival full of sweaty, jumping teenagers. He was there to look for someone’s daughter and bring her an inhalator (not one of his most exciting cases), and he had stumbled upon some band playing music that was somehow both aggressive and depressing at the same time. His eyes had met with the guitarist and just now does it make sense and he’s so happy about somewhat remembering a face that he wants to tell Todd, but in seconds it falls apart as Amanda has her attack.

Dirk decides not to tell him and eventually it doesn’t sound as impressing anymore as he starts recognizing both Farah and Amanda’s faces; it starts feeling a little meaningless, and strangely, it makes him happy. It almost makes him forgets how frustrated he used to be.

 _Almost_ , because there are times when he doesn’t know it’s Todd or a stranger approaching, and other times he looks at Todd and feels that cold again because he looks so different in this angle, or in that lightning. On a bad day, those times will feel like the progress he had made is something he has made up.

“Todd,” he starts. It’s a bad day, and despite his fears about Todd thinking he’s being ridiculous or faking it, he’s going to explode if he doesn’t talk about it. So he does. He still takes pride when he does the opposite of how he used to solve everything because that part is always here, nagging him, and sometimes he gives in and he always regrets it.

“Oh, you’ve probably got Prosopagnosia.” Todd says when he stops talking.

He furrows his brows. “Propo-whatnow?”

Todd rolls his eyes, but there’s a fondness to it that makes Dirk smile a little. “It’s called Prosopagnosia. It’s a disorder that basically means that your ability to recognise faces is impaired. My… my aunt had it. On top of her attacks. In the stress that an attack causes she usually wouldn’t know who was trying to help her, which got…” Todd makes a face.”bad. So she checked it up and it turns out she was faceblind. And it sounds like you have it.”

“Proso… pagosia?” he tried it again. “Prosopagnosia.” and again. “Prosopagnosia.”

Todd smiled and pressed further into Dirk’s side. “Yeah. Prosopagnosia.”

It felt… weird to finally have a word for his condition. He has lived his entire life with the frustration of not knowing there were other people experienced what he did, isolating himself and having to work twice as hard as others to maintain a social network, so hearing that fills a void he didn’t know he had. 

It doesn’t change anything, _not really_ , but it makes him feel slightly less frustrated because now he knows he’s not alone. There’s a burning behind his eyes, and despite Todd’s concerned look he starts to laugh.


End file.
